A relatively busy news day. The big story was the economy, not because anything specific happened, but rather in terms of chatter. The government dumped third quarter stats on our heads, so the news machine shifted into high gear. The big number was GDP (7.4%, on an annualized basis); Q3 by itself was much better (9.1%). Let’s get those links out of the way first.

Wall Street Journal: China’s Economy: The Third Quarter — This is a good start, an easy to digest summary by Tom Orlik. The discussion moves on from GDP to questions about the accuracy of the numbers (Orlik wrote a book about this stuff recently) and substitute stats to verify growth rates.

Foreign Policy: Red State – Why China wants Mitt Romney to win — This is a familiar argument, and I don’t agree with much of it. A good read though, particularly if you’ve never heard the “China likes Republicans” position before.

Foreign Policy: Huntsman Speaks Out — Isaac Stone Fish interviews the former China ambassador and presidential candidate. Some discussion of U.S. China policy and the election, as you might expect.